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Archaeology
Archaeology is a secondary profession that was released in the latest expansion, World of Warcraft: Cataclysm. *Intended as a casual profession for players to enjoy in their "downtime".http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/world-of-warcraft-cataclysm-e3-2010-hands-on *Focused on locating, piecing together, and appraising artifacts unearthed by the Cataclysm. *Interacting with an artifact you find is similar to other gathering professions. It has been specifically stated that you will be able to track both Artifacts and your regular "tracking" for gathering professions. Instead of tracking individual nodes, you will instead search marked regions on the world map (a shovel icon when viewing an entire continent, or a red enclosed region when viewing a single zone). *Common artifacts will become grey items in your inventory that sell for a small amount, but the information on them will be viewable in your profession window. Rare artifacts have been seen to be rare or epic items as well as pets. *Placing an artifact in your journal will allow you to "study" it and progressively unlock new rewards. *Unlocks unique rewards such as vanity pets, mounts, and other "toys", with occasional rare quality weapons or armor. *Players will be able to read ancient runes found amidst ruins and in dungeons to provide themselves and other players with buffs. *Some items and discoveries will be heavily geared towards expanding the game's lore, filling in plot holes, and documenting the history of the world as it was before the Cataclysm. Players will reportedly be able to compile what amounts to a lore database.http://pc.ign.com/articles/109/1096848p1.html *A mock-up of the Archaeology interface is presented as a hand-written journal, with a listing of artifacts, relics, and related reagents and tasks, as well as artwork and a description for each relic. Artifacts are also given a "black market value", indicating that they can perhaps be sold for profit. There has been an indication that your journal may come with some form of "mini-game" to study findings. Description Upon learning the Archaeology secondary profession the player receives the ability . There are 9 fields of research players can explore, most relating to a race in the game: Draenei, Dwarf, Nerubian, Night Elf, Orc, Tol'vir, Troll, Vrykul, and non-race Fossil. Using the Survey skill players need to gather Archaeology Fragments of one type (e.g. ) from Archaeology Finds of the same type. Once enough fragments have been accumulated, they can then Solve the current stage of this race's research and will receive an item upon doing so. How Archaeology Works As relayed by Ghostcrawler... Sites Once Archaeology is trained, you can see digsites on your map (not mini-map). There are always four dig sites per continent. These will not change until you dig one out. You only find sites in zones of your level or lower. A level 25 character will have all 4 sites per continent in level 25 zones. This means that no dig sites will appear for that character in Outland or Northrend until he reaches a minimum level for the zones. Sites are race specific. You can usually guess the race by the location. Some race locations are only available on some continents. You need both a minimum character level and a minimum archaeology level to use some sites. Dig sites are player specific. There is no competition for dig sites. Fragments Each digsite can be searched 3 times before it despawns and a new site spawns. To search a digsite, use the ability. The Survey tool will spawn and point in the approximate direction of the artifact. The Survey tool spawns beside you on the ground and looks like a telecope on a tripod. Walk in the direction that the telescope is pointing, and use Survey again. Repeat doing this until a lootable item appears. The telescope points roughly to the artifact (though it may be off by several degrees). Beside it is a rod with a light on the top. A red light means you are far away, a yellow light means you are closer, and a green light means you may be within 40 yards or so. When the green light begins blinking, you are usually within just a few steps of the artifact. When you discover your find, you'll get fragments specific to a particular race. Note that any race can hunt any other race's artifacts. You are not limited to just yours. There are two main strategies to surveying. You can attempt to triangulate by moving around the outer edge of a digsite. Other people orienteer, simply heading off in the direction indicated until they strike paydirt. When you have picked up your artifact, be sure to Survey again in that exact spot. Sometimes the artifact will spawn again in the same place. Keystones For each race in archaeology (with the exception of Fossil) keystones exist that can be randomly looted when searching for fragments. When solving an artifact, there may be a space at the bottom of the solve page where one or more keystones can be used to give +12 fragments each to the artifact being solved. Any fragments that go over the amount needed to solve the current artifact will carry over to the next puzzle. They are: Night Elf: Highborn Scroll, Troll: Troll Tablet, Dwarf: Dwarven Rune Stone, Orc: Orc Blood Text, Draenei: Draenei Tome, Vyrkul: Vyrkul Rune Stick, Nerubian: Nerubian Obelisk, Tol'vir: Tol'vir Hieroglyphic It is worth noting that keystones are not bind-on-pickup, and as such can be sold on the auction house or passed to other characters if you do not need them for your own archaeology. They can also be used at the entrance to Cataclysm dungeons to provide a buff to the entire party, though each dungeon requires a specific runestone for the buff to be activated and it is destroyed in the process. Artifacts When you get a new fragment, you'll start a research project. You can only work on one artifact per race at a time. When you have enough fragments, click Solve to complete that artifact. You won't waste excess fragments, they will just start the next project. Most artifacts are common. These give a bit of lore or flavor text and an item you can sell for a small profit. You'll still have the description in your journal regardless of what you do with the physical item, so it's ok to sell them. You can estimate the value of the artifact by the number of fragments required to finish it. You will only be able to work on one artifact for a given race at a time. Once one artifact for a given race is completed, the next one will appear in your journal and you cannot continue until you complete it. Some artifacts are rare, requiring many more fragments to complete than common artifacts, and make a blue or purple item. Many of these are toys, or for flavor, but some are actual weapons and armor. Weapons and armor are bound to account, but will not scale like heirlooms do. (Note for scripts: You must have opened your Completed Artifacts list in order for the script to work as of your current solve statuses) If you want to see how many artifacts you have solved for the individual races, use the following script in a macro /run print("Total artifacts"); for x=1,9 do local c=GetNumArtifactsByRace(x); local a =0; for y=1,c do local t = select(9, GetArtifactInfoByRace(x, y)); a=a+t;end local rn = GetArchaeologyRaceInfo(x); if( c > 1 ) then print(rn .. ": " .. a); end end If you want to see how many artifacts you have solved in total, use the following script in a macro /run print("Total artifacts"); local a =0; for x=1,9 do local c=GetNumArtifactsByRace(x); for y=1,c do local t = select(9, GetArtifactInfoByRace(x, y)); a=a+t;end end if(a>0) then print("Total" .. ": " .. a); end Trainers Skill level requirements and cost Levels Archaeology has set skill levels at which players can solve artifacts from different cultures. Fragments collected before players reach the appropriate level are hidden from view until they have reached the appropriate level for that culture and have found more fragments from that culture, at which time the previously collected fragments for that culture are made available. The following are the current levels: There are 2 ways to level Archaelogy: Picking up the various artifact pieces will grant one skill up (three per dig site) until Archaeology level 50. Solving Solving will always level you up, but picking up the pieces only levels you for the lower levels of archaeology. (When the pieces turn grey they no longer level up archaeology. This happens for all archaeology pick ups at level 50.) Solving for common items grants 5 levels of the Archaeology skill, while solving rare items grants 15 skill points. Dig sites Archaeology dig sites can be found on all four continents. There are four dig sites on each continent available at any one time. Dig sites are available based on player skill. However, unlike other gathering professions, there is no competition between players. Upon reaching a dig site, players will be able to collect their three finds before the dig site dries up and a new one is made available. Even if other players are searching at the site, the finds are individual to each player. At the site/field use your survey skill (found in your spellbook on the Professions tab). Using this will spawn the Archaeology Tripod that points in the direction of the artifact/fossil you are looking for. It has a little light that will show the distance to said artifact/fossil. A slow, flashing, red light indicates a large distance up to the length of the entire dig site. A faster, blinking, yellow light seems to indicate approximately 100-300 yards, and a rapid, flashing, green light seems to indicate less than 100 yards. Rewards Archaeology was originally intended to allow advancement in the now-scrapped Path of the Titans system, and would have reportedly awarded players with Ancient Glyph slots and recipes. At present, known rewards include various non-combat items as well as the occasional rare loot. Players will be able to piece together skeletal fragments to create a skeletal raptor mount. Players can also read ancient runes found in ruins and dungeons to give buffs to themselves and others. ;Achievements * * * * * * * Videos Introduction to Archaeology: I7x3WGF4fX0 -bD0_iPhpGc References External Links Category:Archaeology Category:Cataclysm Category:WoW professions Category:WoW secondary professions